


The Most Thoughtful Gesture

by habbue



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cute, Fluff, I don't know what I'm doing, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Tattoos, happiness, my first fanfic in this fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/habbue/pseuds/habbue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil had always been so nice to Carlos, so he wanted to return the favor in the most thoughtful way he could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Thoughtful Gesture

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first WTNV fic so ahhh I don't know what's going on, I hope y'all like it~ (also, what are endings??? i do apologize)

For someone who seemed so ordinarily Night Valian, Cecil Baldwin was anything but that. Carlos noticed that right from the get go, but how couldn’t he? The man walked like a regular person and talked like a regular person — hell, even back then before all of these feeling had blossomed, Carlos couldn’t deny the man had a indisputably if not abnormally soothing and caressing voice. However, one simple look at his face could dispel all ideas that the radio host was normal.

All it took was one look to notice the tattoos, the strange markings on the man’s skin that always seemed a little bit different every time one tried to study them; the strange tattoos that nearly glowed in the daylight and definitely glowed in the darkness. And it might take a second glance to notice a very peculiar tattoo of an eye on Cecil’s forehead, and Carlos had to manually convince himself that he had never seen it blink, because tattoos just didn’t do those sorts of things. It was also odd how his teeth seemed to be…sharpened, or pointed, but that could’ve just been his imagination of course.

No, this radio host wasn’t normal. Nothing in Night Vale was. It still took some getting used to, even one year later, but the outsider was soon learning the strange culture and had almost memorized some of the usual warnings. Watch out for street cleaning day and librarians. Blue dots go on the things you don’t like. Remember to eat at Big Rico’s once a week, but absolutely no wheat or wheat by-products. And of course, to stay away from the dog park.

Usually Carlos wouldn’t appreciate his mind getting conditioned like this. He was a man of intellect, a man of science! He was conducting experiments, and one of those experiments was to observe the people of this town. He was no social scientist of course but he had a basic grasp on sociology, not that any of those rules even applied in this strange little community nestled in the heart of the sand wastes that surrounded them. One of the biggest rules was to not get involved and conditioned to the culture, to remain an unbiased bystander.

But the scientist didn’t mind breaking a personal rule or two, not now. Night Vale was looking like more and more of a long-term option, and the closer he got to the wonderful but completely abnormal Cecil, the longer the term’s outlook seemed to be. Having feelings like these were definitely against his own little code of rules. Don’t get involved with anyone you’re trying to study. That should be obvious, right? Those little niggling feelings sometimes chewed at the back of his brain, but they ran for cover when he approached that beaming, blonde-haired radio host. Carlos could forget about that while he was with Cecil, even though it was completely counterproductive.

Cecil had always been so good to him, so happy to see him right from the get-go. Granted, it was a bit…well, creepy at first, what with Cecil’s strong advances whenever they ran into each other in town (questions about his work, if he could help and to make sure to call him on his personal phone number) and how he would wax poetic during his evening radio show about his perfect hair, teeth, or whatever was on his mind that day.

But, in a land of unimaginably strange people and things, Cecil was almost a breath of fresh air. He was warm and welcoming and even though he was one of those unimaginably strange people…well, that was the first of Carlos’s many exceptions. Honestly, it had all been downhill from that point on but if he were being honest, he really didn’t mind the fall. Besides, Cecil had been amazingly helpful as well as kind. He had informed Carlos of basically anything he wanted to know about just about anything, as long as it was allowed to be shared.

Carlos wanted to do something in return. He didn’t know what exactly he should do that could be considered “special” as he didn’t have many outstanding talents out of his scientific knowledge. He could cook, but that wasn’t special. Tons of people could cook. Carlos wouldn’t even consider himself to be that great of a cook, just that he could make edible and sustainable meals that would just have to do. No, what he wanted to do for Cecil would be something bigger and grander. A man such as that radio host deserved that much, at least.

But, even with that big brain of his, he couldn’t think of a damn thing to do that wasn’t completely idiotic or just plain…dumb. Just as many profound and scientific discoveries, however, the idea came to him as a complete accident, and the man couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it earlier. Kind of like the discovery of penicillin. Or, so Carlos wanted to compare it to, just to make himself feel a little bit better. It all came to be when he was spending some time with Cecil, trying to investigate his tattoos once again.

He would hold on to the man’s arm, watching to see if he could catch movement, but nothing happened. However, take his eyes away for one moment and when he looked back, something was different. Obviously Carlos was intrigued. He was a man of experimentation and strange phenomenon of course. So, since Cecil was usually so helpful, he asked about the tattoos. How on Earth did they move and maybe possibly could he divulge where he got them?

With a raised eyebrow, Cecil peered over his newspaper (always interested in the news, of course) and a loving little smirk pulled up on his thin lips. “Oh, Carlos, I didn’t get these done. They’ve just…always been there. For as long as I can remember.” He said it as if it were obvious, but not in a patronizing or insulting way, just in a way that was so distinctly Cecil, Carlos couldn’t help but feel satisfied with the answer. He certainly had a way about him, that’s for sure.

The answer was still frustrating, though, and not because he was still very interested by the hypnotizing patterns on his boyfriend’s (wow, still such a foreign word to him — it nearly brought a ruddy pink hue to his cheeks) arms, but because this was his thing. His idea, the special thing he was going to do for Cecil. With more prodding and talking, Carlos learned that sometimes people just woke up with tattoos, unsure as to what they did. That brought more questions to the scientist’s mind, and he promptly asked what Cecil’s markings did, his own idea pushed back for the time being now in the routine dance of information flow through his brain.

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough, dear and perfect Carlos,” he murmured, a playful but wickedly malevolent twinkle in his dark eyes as he turned his attention back to the newspaper unfolded in his lap. That answer also wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but at least Cecil hadn’t denied him outright, though he did wonder why it had to wait. Mind always working, processing ideas, it took him a little while before he got back to his previous thoughts.

After Cecil had left for the evening, Carlos went on an investigation. Night time was always a bit dangerous in Night Vale, but then again…this was Night Vale, and it could very well be deadly perilous at any hour of the day. Darkness just made him feel all the more vulnerable. Still, he made his way to the only place in the entire town that offered the services he was looking for. It was a strange house near the edge of town, but not the edge of town that Larry Leroy lived at.

Knocking on the door, a strange man covered nearly head to toe in iridescent tattoos answered it nearly a second later, a wide grin on his face, white teeth sticking out from the flashing colors around his mouth. “Hello, Carlos the scientist, I was expecting you!” he explained happily, nearly pulling the lab coated man into the house, flipping on a light switch. It was barely needed, the man was a walking night light.

“You were?” he asked uncertainly. The sparkling man nodded, grinned his weird smile again and motioned to a chair in the center of the room. It was the only thing in the room actually. Suddenly Carlos got a very uneasy feeling about all of this, but it was too late to back out now, he supposed. The doors probably had diseased, biting locks on them or something ridiculous like that.

“Just think in your head that you’re coming and you’ve got an appointment!” the man said happily. Carlos was a bit more relaxed after he saw that the man was pulling on sterile blue latex gloves instead of picking up a chainsaw or something from behind his little tool caddy. Maybe he shouldn’t have watched those slasher fics on the television last night.

He was jarred from his thoughts as a searing pain went up his arm and a noisy buzzing filled his ears. Before he could protest, the weird glowing man was tattooing away at his skin, etching marks permanently into his body. Well, Carlos knew they weren’t completely permanent but he didn’t want to figure out what it felt like to have a tattoo removed. This pain was bad enough. “What are you doing?!” he asked, voice sounding strained as he bit back yelps of pain.

“Oh, you imagined your tattoo idea, right? That’s what I gathered anyway,” the weird guy said above the noise of the needle. What was this thing, a psychic tattoo artist? Wait, was his tattoo going to end up glowing weirdly like the ones all over that man’s body? Carlos could barely keep up with his own thoughts (a feat, really) but just as soon as the buzzing had started, it stopped. The acute pain was gone, leaving him with a dull throb emanating from his wrist, which was red and a bit puffy but there were markings there…markings exactly how he had wanted them.

He paid the strange luminescent man and went on his way, going back to the lab. Carlos thought it was weird that there had been no after-care instructions discussed with him, but when he sat down at his desk he realized that the pain was completely gone. Looking down at his wrist, the tattoo was still there (and all black, thankfully, not fluorescent) but the swelling and whatnot was gone. It was weird; he’d never gotten a tattoo himself but some of his friends in the earlier days of his college years had, and he remembered them having to use all kinds of normal after-care products to make sure that the tattoo would heal correctly. Then again, Night Vale wasn’t really all that normal.

It was a couple days after that night that Carlos was able to see Cecil again. Both of them were considerably busy men. During the days, Carlos was busy working on his endless experiments and during the nights, Cecil sat in the recording booth at the studio, his relaxing voice seeping into people’s homes, talking about strange phenomenon that were usually described as “the usual custom.”

Still, the scientist was able to escape from his work early one day so he surprised Cecil at his apartment, who seemed to have been waiting for him. When Carlos asked about it, the blonde just responded that he was always waiting for Carlos, and always would be — but he said it in that voice that could strangely satisfy any question yet bring up so many at the same time. He stepped inside the small yet cozy abode and leaned forward to greet Cecil with his favorite greeting, their lips melding in a gentle, loving embrace. Just as they were pulling away from each other, slowly, Cecil’s eyes widened and he gripped Carlos’s arm.

Forgetting for a second that he had gotten a tattoo, Carlos was taken aback until Cecil turned his arm over, inspecting his wrist closely. “Carlos! You…you got a tattoo!” he exclaimed, looking at it with wonder and amazement and a bit of incredulity. “And you’re okay!”

“I’m okay?” he repeated, a little confused by what that could mean.

Looking up at him with those deep dark eyes (and that third eye which was definitely still just a tattoo of its own, Carlos), Cecil looked completely calm. “You didn’t get poisoned? Or diseased? You don’t feel like your wrist is going to fall off?”

“I-Is that what normally happens when you people get tattoos?” Carlos asked with some incredulity of his own. There were apparently many, MANY mysteries of Night Vale that he would probably never have the time or knowledge to investigate and research and experiment on.

Cecil then started rattling off a bunch of instances where people woke up with tattoos and got sick or died or changed colors or developed skin lesions and Carlos had to say his name five times for the man to slow down. “Cecil, no, I didn’t– I had someone put this tattoo on me.”

It was hard to get the man out of reporter mode, once he slipped in to it. Sighing, the scientist answered all of his questions — yes, it hurt but he was going to be fine; that weird glowing guy on the edge of town; no, not Larry Leroy’s edge of town; what do you mean that’s the only guy who lives on the edge of town?

“Larry Leroy is the only person who lives on the edge of town,” Cecil repeated as if it were obvious. “And I’ve never seen a man in glowing, fluorescent tattoos…I think I’d remember that, anyways.”

Carlos was stumped. His mind was wondering how on Earth he met this man, and if it was all a dream, why is there ink etched into his skin? His questions were cut short, however, when Cecil asked a final question. “What does it say?” he asked, peering at the tattoo through his horn-rimmed glasses. Carlos was confused for a moment but when he realized Cecil was looking at it upside down, the scrolling and intricate script probably looked alien from the other direction.

Pulling his arm out of the radio host’s long, thin fingers, Carlos held his arm up, parallel with his side, wrist out so Cecil could see what it said. The man had to take a step closer, and then another step, and soon he was inches away from Carlos’s dark, mahogany skin, eyes widening as he could read the single, wonderful word across his wrist.

“Cecil.”

The man uttered his own name and looked up at Carlos with an emotion the scientist couldn’t describe before actually hugging him, throwing his body against Carlos’s with a strange amount of force for how close they had been standing. The grinning scientist just hugged him back, nuzzled into that mop of blonde hair that was usually kept rather nicely, but tended to get unruly when he was home alone.

“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me!” Cecil gushed, speaking almost faster than Carlos thought, on most days. “You wanted to mark up your perfect, beautiful wonderful skin and you could have picked anything, things like stars or racist tribal symbols or a pinup girl but you chose my name and—”

Cecil only stopped talking when Carlos kissed him again, and deeming the kiss more important than talking, he reciprocated. When the two separated, Cecil tried to talk about it again, but with a smirk Carlos pecked him on the lips once more.

“You don’t have to go on about it,” he said. “I’m actually really glad that you like it so much. But I want to talk about other stuff, too.”

And with an impish little smirk, Cecil wrapped those thin, strangely tattooed arms around the scientist’s neck and over his shoulders, fingers lacing together underneath his perfect hairline. “But if I keep talking about it, you’ll keep stopping me with your kisses.”

Carlos realized that Cecil knew exactly what he was doing, with that abnormal grin pulling up on his abnormal lips. Everything about every situation was completely abnormal, from the fact that his new tattoo didn’t hurt and wasn’t swelling to the fact that, yeah, he was sure about it now, his boyfriend definitely had pointed teeth.

Though all of that should’ve bothered the scientist’s curious, always examining mind, it didn’t. He actually enjoyed it all, very much. And that was good enough for him.


End file.
